


a kiss with a fist (is better than none)

by freckledshoulderblades



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fakes AU, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, M/M, just a bunch of firsts, vague mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-08-14 06:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckledshoulderblades/pseuds/freckledshoulderblades
Summary: The Vagabond takes the last few steps separating them, and shoves the paper in front of Gavin’s face, snapping his wrist to unfold it.It’s a picture of Gavin from before he joined the Fakes, the same picture Geoff had sent him with the intent of scaring him away from their territory. Back when Gavin was just a scrappy Brit on the streets of Los Santos, trying to trade his skills for enough money to survive.“This you?” the Vagabond rumbles, and Gavin nods.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexanderPeterson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexanderPeterson/gifts).



The first time Gavin meets the Vagabond his vision is blurry from the repeated blows from his torturers, sight clouded by blood and exhaustion, and the skull mask firmly concealing his savior’s face heralds a sense of relief, because Gavin -

Well, he’s not exactly the religious sort, not like Geoff with his hasty prayers before a mission, with Michael and his whispered hopes every time he throws a grenade.

But right now, staring down this man, this veritable angel of _death_ -

Gavin smiles, grin dopey and teeth coated in scarlet, and accepts that he’s going to die here in the abandoned warehouse he’d been stolen away to, without even having a right lay since he joined the Fakes. He can’t even muster up the strength for a solid one liner as the Vagabond approaches him, shotgun in hand, reaching deep in their jeans and pulling out a folded piece of paper.

They hum, something low and sonorous, and Gavin finally notices the bodies strewn across the floor - his captors. The Vagabond takes the last few steps separating them, and shoves the paper in front of Gavin’s face, snapping his wrist to unfold it.

It’s a picture of Gavin from before he joined the Fakes, the same picture Geoff had sent him with the intent of scaring him away from their territory. Back when Gavin was just a scrappy Brit on the streets of Los Santos, trying to trade his skills for enough money to survive.

“This you?” the Vagabond rumbles, and Gavin nods. The movement takes too much out of him and he lapses out of consciousness for a moment, only coming to when he feels the cold of metal against his bound wrists. There’s a brief flare of panic in his muddled mind, enough to bring his awareness back to the current situation and the shuffle of movement right behind him, the frustrated grunts as what he assumes is a knife cuts through his bindings and his arms fall limp to his sides.

The Vagabond says something, then, and it’s all Gavin can do to stay awake right now, let alone focus on listening, and the room fades to black.

A sharp slap across his face brings him back, if only for a moment, and Gavin shudders out a wet breath, coughing up a worrying amount of blood.

“I said,” and somewhere in the back of his mind Gavin feels fear light up at the low, growling tone, “can you get yourself out of here?”

Gavin has to repress the urge to laugh at the Vagabond’s question, due in part to how he thinks a few of his ribs are broken. “Can’t fuckin….move.” he wheezes, and his savior sighs a little in response.

He uses the few minutes the Vagabond takes to pace around the room wildly to get his bearings, attempting to stand and shouting when his leg gives out under him. The Vagabond is at his side in an instant, swearing under their breath and checking him over with too rough hands.

“Worse than I thought.” They say, clipped and angry, and Gavin shivers.

He’s heard stories about the Vagabond - everyone in Los Santos has. A one man army, the last resort for a crew if they needed help - not only because of their ridiculously high price, but also because they often had their own agenda.

The last crew to hire them had been the Vikings, a group of idiots embroiled in a turf war with the Reapers, a biker gang based out of the northern outskirts of the city. The Vagabond had been called in after the murder of one of the Viking lieutenants, and had subsequently slaughtered the lot of them.

Only after the fact was the information that they were involved in human trafficking surface, leaked to a reputable journalist by an ‘unknown source’.

So when the Vagabond leans in close, close enough that even through the haze Gavin can see their piercing blue eyes, his pulse quickens and he whimpers under his breath as they gently hook their arms under his back and legs and lift him from the warehouse floor. The pain that comes from the sudden movement is indescribable, lacing up from his side and legs in lightning strikes that cause Gavin to gasp out a shocked scream.

“Shut up.” the Vagabond hisses, adjusting him so he can position his shotgun awkwardly out from under his legs. Gavin can’t help himself, letting out a pained sob with every step the Vagabond takes, until finally they stop and hiss into his ear, “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll kill you. Don’t care what Ramsey’s offering for this.”

Gavin clasps a lacerated hand over his mouth to muffle his cries as they resume their pace, head slumping against the Vagabond’s worn leather jacket in exhaustion and relief at the thought that Geoff went to all this trouble trying to get him back to the Fakes.

Back _home_.

The warm leather against his feverish skin feels pleasant enough that Gavin feels himself drifting despite the constant stabbing pain in his abdomen, the way his legs ache in a way he vaguely thinks they shouldn’t.

“Who are you?” he hears himself slur against the Vagabond’s chest, and a moment passes in dead silence as they cross the threshold of the warehouse and cold bites at Gavin’s exposed wounds.

“You know who I am.”

The response is harsh, snapped out with all the care of a murderous stranger, and Gavin chokes out a laugh.

“Don’t you have a name, love?” he wonders aloud, and again the Vagabond pauses.

Their reply seems lower, softer. “Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?”

“Never been good at that.” Gavin says, and blacks out.

 

\-----

 

Two weeks after the Vagabond drops a beaten and bloodied Gavin off at the Fakes’ penthouse, Geoff takes a call during a crew meeting with a scowl. He waves off Jack when she raises a brow, leaving the room with a gruff, “What the fuck do you want.” directed into the receiver.

Gavin turns his attention back to Michael and Jeremy, who’ve been engaged in a rather intense game of slap hands under the table for the past half hour, and grins at Jack when she turns her ire on the two.

“Hey, are you two even fuckin’ listening?” she demands, and Jeremy at least has the sense to look sheepish. Michael nods absently, smacking the shorter man’s hands roughly, and mutters something under his breath.

When Jack slams her hands on the table, he squints up at her.

“Michael.”

“Yeah, the uhhh heist. Fuckin’ bank, over on the east side. I’m blowin’ shit up. Like always.”

She has to take a step back, rubbing her temples, and throws her hands in the air. “Fuck it, good enough.”

Geoff returns a moment later, considerably more pale than when he left.

“So, it looks like we’re gonna have an extra set of hands on this one.” he says, and the way his voice wavers ever so slightly doesn’t go unnoticed. In a movement that directly reflects Jack’s he rubs his temples in frustration, fidgeting with his bow tie and attempting to stand a little straighter.

“We’re bringing on the Vagabond again. They want to ‘see how we work’.” He helpfully adds air quotes to emphasize just what situation the crew seems to find themselves in, just what the Vagabond joining in could mean.

Michael looks up, eyes darting between Jack and Geoff, and huffs a sigh. “So I guess we’re all fuckin’ dead then.”

Geoff holds up a finger to retort. “Well, we could potentially make it out of this alive if we, uh-”

Before he finishes Jack levels a stare at him that makes Gavin shift uncomfortably in his seat. He knows that glare, has been on the receiving end of it far too much whenever he suggests something incredibly stupid.

“We’re not killing the Vagabond.” she announces, and Geoff frowns.

“Now hold on-”

“No, Geoffrey,” and the remainder of the crew awkwardly looks away from the burgeoning argument. “We aren’t killing them, or planning to kill them, because they could wipe out the Fakes without an issue.”

“What we’re going to do,” and here Jack pauses and turns to the rest of the crew, “What we’re going to do is welcome them with open arms. We’re going to show them a functional, cohesive team that does their best to bring down dickheads that are doing bad shit for profit. Just like we always have.”

Gavin shifts in his wheelchair, thankful for the heavy dose of painkillers when he feels the dull ache in his abdomen, and coughs a little. Michael makes to stand up, belayed only when Gav grins a dopey smile in his direction with a wave of his hand.

“You know, they’re not that bad. Pretty top.”

“The Vagabond?” Geoff asks, only a little incredulous.

“I mean, they did save me. Proper gentleman about it too.” Gavin thinks briefly back to the careful handling he’d received from the stranger, how the retrieval process could have been so much more painful. “Honestly, I’m all for them joining up. It’ll make getting those records at the bank a load easier.”

Jack turns her gaze back on him, arms crossed, and shrugs.

Geoff worries his lip with his teeth, sighing. “Fuck, I guess. I’ll let them know when the next meeting is.” As he turns to leave the boardroom, he mutters lowly, “Guess this is fuckin’ happening.”

Jack closes her eyes and turns them skyward for a moment as Jeremy stands and moves over to Gavin with the intent of helping him back to bed, taking hold of the wheelchair after Gavin nods his permission. “Come on, you need more rest.” Jeremy murmurs lowly.

“Careful with him.” Jack warns.

Gavin scoffs. “I’m right here!”

“You’re here _now_.” she says softly, and Gavin feels a pang of regret. Jeremy pats him on the shoulder as he wheels Gavin back to the makeshift infirmary a few rooms away.

Placing him back on the bed takes Jeremy little to no effort, and not for the first time Gavin’s a little starstruck at the feeling of being manhandled by the shorter man, at how he can maneuver Gavin’s lithe form without a problem. With a squeeze to Gavin’s shoulder, Jeremy leaves the room and clicks the lights off as he goes, shutting the door with a soft click.

The ease with which he falls asleep is both welcoming and expected, given his still battered and bruised body. Though the cuts have scabbed over on his hands and legs, his ribs are still healing, will be for another month or so. His skin is still marked with burns and skin blackened from the trauma of being beaten liberally with a club, but for the moment -

Gavin can sleep soundly knowing the rest of the Fakes are at his back, ready to kill for him, ready to risk damn near everything to get him back alive.

Hopefully the Vagabond can understand their goals well enough to refrain from slaughtering them all come the next heist.

 

\-----

 

Somewhere out in the foothills of Mt Chilead, the Vagabond adjusts his mask and shoves his phone deep in his pocket as he starts up their motorcycle. The drive back to his hideout is etched in his brain from too many late nights returning from murders, from tortures, from death and destruction and pain and screaming and -

He breathes then, deep and practiced, and exhales a moment later. He’s justified in his actions. A murderer stalking and killing other murderers, slavers, rapists - the Vagabond is a chaotic force for good. And now, with his sights set on the most prolific crew in Los Santos, the Fakes...

There’s contingencies to plan for and profiles to construct, and he knows just the man to help him.

 

\-----

 

Gavin’s phone buzzes on the nightstand of the infirmary hours after he’s fallen asleep with a text from an unknown number that reads:

 _Need some information, Golden Boy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've got a lot of feelings about the vagabond and their morals and why he does things  
> and i very much believe that like, as a freelancer? he just fucking kicks ass if the dicks deserve it  
> i'm also of the opinion that he's like the big bad boogeyman of ls and that no one really knows who he is  
> hence the ambiguous references to his gender
> 
> comments are encouraged and highly appreciated and they inspire me to write more things!!! <3


	2. Chapter 2

 

Gavin throws back his third energy drink of the day with what some would consider a reckless abandon, pointedly ignoring the way his phone buzzes a few feet to his left. If he doesn’t respond, there’s no problem. Sure, his freelance work might suffer, but it really only served to fill the void of time between heists anyways. The possibility that came with helping the person on the other end, sending texts that demanded information about his crew?

That could end in a spectacular explosion, with him and the Fakes at the center.

So really, avoiding his second cell, his ‘work cell’, was for the best at this point in time. Especially since he was gearing up for the Maze Bank heist.

The heist that just so happened to feature the individual currently demanding information from his freelancing moniker.

Gavin bites his lip and sighs a little, snagging the phone and thumbing through the notifications.

“ _ Need some information, Golden Boy. _ ” was at the top, the message that had prompted him to search out the identity of the individual contacting his number. When his results came back with a man named Edgar, Gavin had thrown in both the metaphorical towel and any hopes of sleeping well for the next few nights. Edgar, of course, being the Vagabond’s most used alias, and most usually the only point of reference anyone had to call them by. Gavin knew the saying - once you’ve found Edgar, you’re already in the hole.

He really didn’t want to live by it as well.

The next message, a simple “ _ Pay is good. Better than last time. _ ”

Gavin remembered the last time - he’d actually had quite the hand in taking down the Vikings. Gavin remembered the money wired to his account, the ridiculous party he’d thrown afterwards. Gavin also remembered the way the Vagabond had strung up one of the leaders of the Vikings in Reaper territory, had seen pictures detailing the mass of blood and viscera that had once been a living human.

He’d chanced a reply after the second message. “ _ Who’s the target? _ ” was simple, easy to type, easy to forget.

When Gavin had received the reply his heart had fallen.

“ _ Ramsey’s crew. The Fakes. _ ”

That presented a fair slew of problems.

To Gavin’s knowledge, no one aside from his crew knew about his freelance work, no one had put together that the Golden Boy, hacker extraordinaire, was the same Gavin Free of the Fakes, a goofy, strange, lanky man. He preferred it that way, made passing on the information to the Fakes a lot easier than it had been five years ago, made doling out punishment to those that deserved it a little sweeter.

But for now there was a phone with a few messages that were making his life very, very difficult, because the Vagabond had a way of finding those that refused to help, and Gavin very much didn’t want the world to realize he and the Golden Boy were one and the same. In the same breath though, he couldn’t very well give up information about the Fakes. That marked betrayal on a few levels, and Gavin’s fear of the wrath Jack could bring down upon him was on the same level of his fear of what the famed Vagabond could do to him. 

So Gavin does what he thinks is the best idea he’s had in a long while:

Gavin calls Matt.

 

\-----

 

“You’re  _ fucking _ kidding me, Gav.” Matt says when Gavin’s finished explaining, and the secure feed that they’re Skyping over makes his voice tinny and robotic with disbelief. Gavin nods in response, mouth a thin line.

Matt runs a hand through blue and brown hair, scrubbing at his unkempt beard in frustration.

“What have I told you, Gav. Like, what have I said a  _ million _ fucking times.”

Gavin sighs. “Never mess with mercenaries.”

“Never! And what are you doing, right now?”

Gavin gets the feeling that as amazing as Matt usually is at helping, the process isn’t going to happen without a few blows to his ego.

“Messing with a mercenary.”

Matt devolves into curses, typing rapidly at his own computer, and Gavin leans back in his desk chair as far as he can without tipping over.

“They’re not  _ all _ bad, Matthew -” he starts, but the loud “Eh eh eh!” from Matt knocks him back into silence, save for the familiar clicking of keyboard keys. More than a few minutes pass like this, with Gavin scanning his room for an idea, any idea on how to approach the situation at hand.

“Matthew?” he asks. 

There’s a questioning grunt in response.

“Are you doing something right now that could save my arse?”

Matt stops typing, leveling a stare at the screen that makes Gavin screw up his nose.

“Yeah, buddy. Calling in a friend.”

Gavin has only a moment to feel the apprehension rise into his throat before the door to his room swings open, the silhouette of both Jack framing the entrance.

“What’s this about the Vagabond?” she asks, and Gavin glares at Matt, hoping that despite the distance he can feel the budding annoyance he’s trying to express. 

Matt shrugs, raising his hands in a ‘fuck it’ gesture. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. This is Fakes’ territory.” The typing on his end resumes, Gavin catching the glimpse of a cocky grin before Matt ends the connection and leaves Gavin staring into the lines of code he’s been hemming and hawing over.

Jack walks the short distance between the door and Gavin’s work area, perching on the bed only a few feet away. She looks hardy and resolved and there’s a reason Gavin didn’t call for her first and the entirety of it was that when Jack looked like this she was terrifying. Not necessarily in a blood and guts sort of way, so much as a ‘this is my crew and i’ll be damned if anything happens to them’ way.

She really nailed down the fine line between being a stunningly attractive woman with chaos running in her veins and being the impulse control for the majority of the Fakes, if not just Geoff.

For now, though, Jack’s perched on his unmade bed with her arms crossed and a curious look on her face. “Gav,” she says, and he sighs heavily. He knows what comes next.

“I think it’s time for a meeting.”

 

\-----

 

_ First profile sent to the dead drop in Chamberlain Hills. _

The Vagabond smiles beneath his mask, tucking his phone in his jacket pocket and starting his motorcycle.

 

\-----

 

All eyes are on Gavin as his phone buzzes on the boardroom table, Jeremy watching him with a soft look when he fumbles the device in his attempts to unlock it.

_ Understood. _

Geoff rubs his eyes, downing a third of his coffee in one go, and Gavin absently realizes that it’s far too late for the rest of the crew to be awake right now. “What did they say?” he asks, and Michael’s at Gavin’s side in a second to scan over the conversation.

“Understood.” Michael mocks in a deep voice. 

Jeremy cocks his head, dropping it into his hands. “So what did you send him, Gav?”

Jack slips into the room, nursing her own mug, and walks over to refill Geoff’s as well as he slumps into one of the large office chairs. “Well, we decided that sending the Vagabond fake information was a little better than ignoring the murderous bastard, so they now have a  _ slightly _ incorrect profile on Geoff.”

Geoff squawks indignantly from his seat, but Jack ignores him with a small smile.

“They know his name and face - we couldn’t exactly get away with faking that when they’re about to join up for the heist next week. But Gav had difficulties,” and here she uses air quotes liberally enough that Jeremy snickers, “procuring the correct information about his past, his ‘job history’, shit like that.”

“That doesn’t make it sound too convincing.” Geoff mumbles into his coffee.

Gavin breaks out into a grin, a hand over his heart in a facsimile of pain. “You wound me, Geoffrey.”

The deadpan stare he receives in return makes up for the effort it took to construct the profile, the difficulty he had in piecing together just enough that it sounded plausible, while also leaving out some of Geoff’s more sordid past.

He used to be a weapons runner, back in the day, and he’d hired Gavin to hide that part of his past. While Geoff himself didn’t actively seek anyone out to kill, to maim and murder and destroy only to prove a point - the rest of his crew at the time very much did.

Tying Geoff’s name to a long dead merc group that left behind a trail of destruction wouldn’t look good in the Vagabond’s eyes.

Gavin’s well realized this, realized that near everyone in his crew - his  _ family _ \- has enough in their background to give pause. Michael’s services were up for offer to the highest bidder, and working with explosives often meant that civilians were hurt or killed in the process. Jeremy was along the same route as the Vagabond, once, doing enough hits for hire that his alter ego, Rimmy Tim, has an air of fear and respect to it even now.

Jack, though. Jack’s evidently been squeaky clean since the start, and that’s something Gavin doesn’t necessarily trust. Not that he doesn’t trust her, per se, just that the complete blank slate in her past makes him worry.

He’s the best there is at what he does - creating new lives for people, erasing histories. If someone else got to her first, uncovered what he couldn’t find -

That could potentially be a very significant issue.

For the time being, however, there’s a heist to plan and distractions in the form of a terrifying mercenary to put aside.

 

\-----

 

“All lines open, Gav?”

Gavin’s fingers dance over his keyboard, checking the status of his crew. “Confirmed, Beardo.”

“Okay. Geoff, wanna start this off?”

“Alright, motherfuckers.” Geoff starts, and the crew can’t help but laugh at the forced squeakiness to it, tension lessening enough despite what they’re about to do. 

“What are we doin’, Geoff?” Jeremy calls out, and the crew erupts again. Gavin grins into his own mic, nerves fluttering when he notes that one comm channel is suspiciously silent.

“We’re heistin! We’re gonna  _ get _ in the bank, we’re gonna  _ steal _ all those records, and we’re gonna  _ expose _ that shitty mayor!”

Michael whoops, loud enough that Gavin has to dial down the intensity of his channel just a touch. There’s a hesitant silence that follows, and it’s hard to tell given that he only has audio, but Gavin would attribute the sudden awkwardness to the Vagabond following the crew like a grim specter.

“Vagabond.” Jack asks, and Gavin hears a gruff chuckle from the masked mercenary. “Are you ready?”

The Vagabond doesn’t respond immediately but when he does, Gavin’s certain that the dull roar of wind dulls the response for everyone except him.

“Are you?”

 

\-----

 

The heist goes off without a hitch - the Vagabond’s presence keeping everyone too alert and too ready to fight. When the inevitable happens - the LSPD showing up a few minutes earlier than planned - there’s enough tension and heightened vigilance that the expected firefight never comes. Geoff gets to simply wave a tattooed hand at the police as Jack and Michael drive the getaway cars, Gavin whooping in their comms as he watches the cops through the bank’s CCTV feed.

The Vagabond follows them back to a safe house without issue, watches like a hawk when Jack sends the data Gavin needs to construct the profiles he needs to leak the story properly. The mayor had been involved with a number of gangs in the area, even going so far as to ‘dispose’ of some of his competition when elections rolled around, and now that he was looking to cut funding to one of the most charitable and well known children’s hospitals in Los Santos -

Well, that’s when it became the Fakes’ problem to sort out.

Barely a word passes between the Vagabond and the rest of the crew when they decide to leave, a simple “Well done.” as they close the door behind them. Gavin can hear Jeremy huff loudly over the comms, Michael muttering something completely indecent about the figure retreating to the motorcycle parked across the street.

Jack and Geoff, though, they’re too elated by the heist to register anything but Gavin’s stuttering laugh when the data file goes through from the pseudonym he’d created to a journalist working for the LS Times, the immediate response that demanded more information, more  _ anything _ that Gavin had available.

So when Gavin’s cell buzzes a few feet away, when his stomach sinks at the familiar number, the familiar brevity, Jack and Geoff don’t notice his shaky breath.

_ Need information on Gavin Free. _

 

\-----

 

Ryan Haywood - the Vagabond - isn’t a stupid man. He’s learned to read people, understand motivations and patterns, fix problems.

Gavin Free is a problem.

Gavin is a problem because Ryan hasn’t seen him since his stint in the warehouse, beaten and bloodied and limp in his arms, but he’s heard his voice near nonstop the past few hours, chattering away like he wasn’t coordinating a heist, like he wasn’t working behind the scenes to ensure that no one got hurt. The voice seemed healthier, happier, more confident than the stuttering screams and shaky breaths, and Ryan couldn’t say for sure which he prefers at this point.

If pressured, he’d probably pick something in between. Shaky breaths with feigned confidence.

Gavin is again, he has to remind himself, a problem. A variable he isn’t sure how to account for. He’s watched the remainder of the Fakes, learned how they work together and he’s started to understand their motivations, but the only things he knows about Gavin are filtered through comms and snarky jokes, blood dripping down his coat and cocky, bloodied smiles.

Ryan isn’t a stupid man, nor is he a hasty one.

Gavin intrigues him, though, and he’s willing to bet there’s a reason his mind won’t stop fixating on the man.

More importantly, he’s willing to do a lot to fix this particular problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so late everyone! some shit happened the last month and i just...couldn't fuckin write lmao
> 
> comments are appreciated! thank you for reading! <3


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